Cloud9’s Game Plan Mid matchup might be the most important thing within this entire series. Jensen is known to be good in the 1v1, but what is even more important is his ability to enable Blaber. This team has found success through Jensen playing supportive mids and being able to assist his jungler carry the game. Zilean, Orianna and even Lulu have been his best picks to enable this type of play. Getting Jensen a superior mid lane matchup is important for Blaber’s success. Use your sub advantage to change things up I try not to play into plot lines too much when giving my analysis, but a jungler from TSM that has played with them for an entire year, I’d assume he has learned the tendencies of his teammates; C9 need to use this as leverage. Svenskeren should know how Bjergsen wants his jungler to ward and play around the mid lane, therefore he should be able to counteract the enemy jungler. TSM is based off of their mid laner getting an advantage and having the jungler cater to that, it’s no hidden secret or narrative anymore. Not only would this be good for learning about the enemy team, but this is an incredibly useful tactic for tilt. “Kick me from the team, I kick you from Worlds”. I think there’s a good amount of psychological warfare to be had in this series, with both Svenskeren and Jensen toppling TSM, but also that Blaber and Svenskeren's playstyles are different enough to warrant a substitution. Goldenglue might also be a player which warrants play time if C9 want to use their duo strategy like the game against Team Liquid. Allow for Licorice to get a good matchup if mid doesn’t get priority in draft. The fallback plan for C9 can always be to allow Licorice to get a good matchup top lane. Licorice has been performing phenomenally this split, with impressive stats in KDA, death share, and XP at 10 minutes, all of these stats are better than Hauntzer’s. If there’s a good upset on other parts of the map that aren’t tied to mid lane, it would be top lane. Licorice has shown he is capable of putting up great performances, even when his team’s roster has been tumultuous at best. Give this man a good matchup and he’ll give you a victory. TSM’s Game Plan If there is one big weakness on C9, it has to be their aggression, but that is also their biggest strength. Blabber has been repeatedly aggressive and with that in mind, you should be able to punish this through defensive ward coverage. If Bjerg can hold his own (which he can), then TSM should be able to punish Blaber for his aggressive invades and then win the mid/jungle matchup from there to snowball the rest of the map. C9 rely on early game and lane dominance C9 have been known to be one of the better early game teams, which also happens to be the bane of TSM. If Bjergsen can get an advantage in the early game or if every TSM lane can stabilize their matchup, TSM should win the late game. This points towards TSM having a necessity to get a good mid lane matchup in order to facilitate his lane and dictate the enemy jungler's route as well. Getting Jensen off of supportive mids should also work, that way it may turn into a carry versus carry matchup in the mid lane, but that means both are going into the matchup against the rival best mid laner in the west. Mid lane counterpick is incredibly crucial for this match. Look to get Jensen off of the Orianna pick. Both teams have clear win conditions and with that said, I think C9 has far better avenues to produce a victory. I predict a 3-1 in favor of C9. ___ Izento has been a writer for the LoL scene since Season 7, and has been playing the game since Season 1. Follow him on Twitter at @ggIzento for more League content. Images courtesy of Lolesports Flickr.